


runaway

by bubonickitten



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games)
Genre: (it's all in his head but still), (specifically wrt fire/burning), Angst, Bipolar Anders (Dragon Age), Gen, Hallucinations, Solitary Confinement, and how much of it is tied to his own guilt and self-loathing, brief self-harm mention, flagrant overuse of the em-dash, i have a lot of feelings abt anders' complicated relationship with his faith, spiritual abuse and the effects thereof, unreality, violent imagery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-04
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23994250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bubonickitten/pseuds/bubonickitten
Summary: TL;DR: Anders experiences religiously-themed hallucinations while in solitary confinement.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7





	runaway

**Author's Note:**

> I got stuck on the thought of bipolar!Anders with religiously-themed hallucinations & delusions and it ended up mashing together with him experiencing sensory deprivation in solitary confinement. So I spit out a thing to get it out of my system.
> 
> Almost everything said by the voices are verbatim lines of the Chant. 
> 
> CW for some graphic/violent imagery (related to burning/fire), brief mention of self-harm, unreality, and just being generally depressing. 
> 
> (This was written four years ago but only ever posted to Tumblr. Just got an AO3 account recently, so I'm uploading some of my old fic.)

Anders keeps himself pressed into one corner, knees hugged tight to his chest. Maybe if he makes himself smaller, the space will seem bigger, he thinks. Not that it matters much anyway — no matter how close together or far apart the walls are, the sheer density of the pitch darkness surrounding him would leave him claustrophobic. _Suffocating._

With a grimace, he cautiously begins to extend one knee, wincing when his muscles cramp and his joints protest from being held in the same position for far too long. He’s not sure how long he’s been in this cell — he lost track some time ago — but he thinks he recognizes the beginnings of atrophy. Early on, he did a lot of pacing, but for the last… however many days — weeks? — he has been unable to find the motivation. Instead, he spends most of his time sitting, listless, resigned to the indefinite solitude. 

“In the absence of light, shadows thrive,” a sibilant whisper comes out of the darkness, surrounding him on all sides. 

_Not this again, no—_

“Many are those who wander in sin, despairing that they are lost forever…”

His eyes widen and he clamps his hands down on his ears. _It’s not real. It’s not real. You know it’s not real._

“All before me is shadow… there is no darkness in the Maker’s Light.”

_That’s not even how it goes, that’s not the full verse—_

“There is no Light here, only Void.” 

_Well, can’t argue with that, but—_

“Foul and corrupt are _you!”_ The accusation is an earsplitting roar this time, so deafening that Anders jumps in surprise, smacking the back of his head on the stone wall behind him. Searing pain radiates across his skull and down his spine. When he touches his fingers to the spot, he feels something sticky, like blood, but he can’t tell if it’s from his scalp or if it’s simply the dried blood left on his fingertips, still raw and stinging from scratching aimlessly at the walls.

“Maleficar! Accursed one! Magic exists to serve man and never to rule over him! Foul and corrupt, _foul and corrupt, **foul and corrupt** —” ___

____

__

“I’m not a maleficar—” It's barely a whisper, his voice ragged with disuse. When was the last time he spoke? He remembers screaming, at some point. A lot. There had been no response, other than his own echos bouncing off the walls of the cramped space. Eventually, his voice gave out and he choked on the silence. How long ago was that? 

“What is golden and pure tainted black.” The unknown voice is quieter now, but resolute. Sinister. “Where the Maker turns his face away is a Void in all things; in the world, in the Fade, in the hearts and minds of men.” 

“I’m _not_ a maleficar!” Louder, this time, but still strained and hoarse.

Something seizes his wrist — something cold, clammy, with bony fingers pressing into his skin. 

“Passing out of the world, in that Void they shall wander. O unrepentant, faithless, treacherous. They who are judged and found wanting shall know forever the loss of the Maker’s love. Only Our Lady shall weep for them.” 

The last few words hang thick in the air, followed by several minutes of complete silence — silence so loud it leaves his ears ringing. Anders can feel his heart pounding in his throat, his wrist still pinned against the wall so forcefully he can feel it bruising. He desperately wants to pull away, but he's frozen in place, paralyzed with dread.

Some time later, he hears a choked sob echo from somewhere out of the darkness. The small hairs on the back of his neck stand on end and he shivers, listening, daring to take only shallow breaths. The sobbing noise continues, soft at first but within minutes escalating into open weeping, louder and louder, ricocheting off the walls and rattling around in his skull. He presses his free hand over one ear, but the other is still held fast against the wall. Silently, he begs the noise to _stop, stop, just **stop** —_

Suddenly, something grabs his free wrist and wrenches it backward against the wall, ripping some of his hair away with it. 

“My Maker, know my heart,” a new voice purrs in his ear. “Take me from a life of sorrow, lift me from a world of pain. Judge me worthy of your endless pride.” 

He hears himself whimper as he tries to squirm away. Whatever is holding him pulls him back violently, twisting; he feels his bones crunch under the pressure and cries out when piercing pain shoots through both arms. When he feels a strong grip latch onto each of his ankles, he loses his composure and the panicked tears fall. 

“Touch me with fire that I be cleansed!” It’s the first voice again, louder than ever before. 

With that, a blazing inferno flares to life in front of him. Anders flinches back and hits the wall — he’s already pressed into the corner as far as he can go, wrists trapped to either side, ankles held in place. As the heat scorches his throat and sears his lungs, he flashes back to the fire in the barn, the flames he can’t control; he thinks of the immolation of Andraste, the hateful glare of the sunburst brand on the foreheads of the Tranquil, the Tranquil, _how can they call that torture ‘tranquil’—_

“For you are the fire at the heart of the world, and comfort is only yours to give!” 

“Will you run again?” The second voice this time, no longer a purr but a hiss. 

A wave of fury hits him just then, drowning out his terror. “Yes! Yes, I will! It isn’t right! It isn’t right what they do to us and I refuse!” 

Flames begin to lick at his feet and his fear approaches a crescendo. 

“In your heart shall burn an unquenchable flame, all-consuming and never satisfied!” 

The second voice starts in halfway through the verse: _“Will you run again?”_

_“Yes!”_ Anders repeats, his defiance just barely eclipsing his fear now. “Andraste freed the slaves, she wouldn’t approve of what the Chantry does to mages. Our magic is a gift, given to us by the Maker, and—”

He can’t say any more. He feels the fire eating at his flesh, gnawing at his bones and he can only scream his throat raw, choking on the smoke. 

“As the moth sees light and goes toward flame,” the first voice rumbles warningly, trailing off as the second exhales softly into his ear: “Will you run again?” 

He can’t, he _can’t, he **can’t—**_

“No,” he sobs, and hates himself for it. “No, I swear, I won’t run again, I—please, just—”

“The deep dark before dawn’s first light seems eternal, but know that the sun always rises.” 

Anders jolts awake up at “eternal” — _when did he fall asleep? Has he been asleep this entire time?_ — but the voice follows him out of the nightmare, a low murmur in his ear that carries over into his waking world. There is no inferno engulfing his cell. No smoke to choke him, only pressing darkness. No force is holding him down now. Tentatively, he touches his face, his legs, his arms — the skin is intact — and he dissolves into tears, curling into a tight ball and pressing himself into the corner again. 

“The deep dark before dawn’s first light seems eternal, but know that the sun always rises.”

The voice lingers long after the dream fades, but it makes for poor company, since those are the only words it seems to know. It would be nice if it could at least mix in some other parts of the Chant once in awhile, if only for variety. When he tells it that, though, its response is predictable enough. 

“The deep dark before dawn’s first light seems eternal, but know that the sun always rises.”

Hours — days, for all he knows — go by and Anders still can’t work out the intention. It is a promise? A reassurance? An apology? A warning? Or just a resounding condemnation? When he asks, he receives no answer, only yet another recitation. 

“The deep dark before dawn’s first light seems eternal, but know that the sun always rises.”

Exhausted, he thinks back to the fire in the barn, when everything went wrong. In a way, it was both an ending and a beginning. 

_Was I supposed to burn? Is that what you wanted from me?_

He confesses and he repents, but there is no peace and nothing ever changes.

There is no Light here, only Void.

Yet… when he finally sleeps again — 

  
_In your heart shall burn an unquenchable flame.  
All-consuming.  
Never satisfied.  
_

— he dreams of freedom.


End file.
